Alarming Tales from the Allotment Shed

John Lodge has held a plot on site for over 30 years, tucked away towards the Highfield Road Entrance. We caught up with John a few weeks ago and asked if he would mind popping some information across to us about his time on site. Here are his thoughts, and as with everyone who has taken part we are immensely grateful to John for sharing with us.


I first took on an allotment at Melbourne Park site about 34 years ago, prior to that I had one for a short period in Waterhouse lane next to the Parks department . My original plot at Melbourne was opposite plot 4 the one I have currently.( I can not remember the number but its beside the water tap and part of it is now being
as a car park).

It was in a very poor state , overgrown and plenty of stones.The council did not make any attempt to kill the weeds and turn it over. So it took me about six months to clear the weeds and get it in reasonable shape so that i could actually grow something.I think the first crop in was potatoes and I very quickly learnt that if i planted a white variety the slugs loved them.Ever since then I have always planted a red variety as main crop, normally Desiree.



After a number of years on that plot and many barrow load of manure later I did mange to grow a reasonable number of different vegetables , runner beans, french beans, peas, carrots , lettuce , beetroot , tomatoes, sprouting broccoli. The only soft fruit I had was three very scruffy Gooseberry bushes, which were stacked with fruit every year. They seemed to thrive on neglect. However the main problem with that plot was the massive number of stones and trying to plant fine seeds like carrot , lettuce was challenging to say the least.However in those days I never had to cover any green veg to protect against Pigeons and was never troubled by the dreaded Badger.Consequently I could even grow sweet corn, happy days.



I built my first allotment shed on this plot out of very large Marine Ply packing case, that I purchased from work for 10p. It was my pride and joy and was only pulled down by Chris Perrin last year, I told him that it had a preservation order on it and he should not have taken it down with out my permission. Unfortunately it was broken into three times with various tools and a new set of rotovator tines taken. In those days the fence around the allotment was very poor,far worse than today. As a result of the break ins I decided to build a shed alarm using a microswitch, 12 volt car battery and a very large 12 volt fire bell which I attached to the back of the shed. It worked very well ,until I had a phone call from a friend in Highfield road who said a bell ringing had kept him awake that night, was it anything to do with me. The strong wind that night had moved the door and set off the alarm. It was still ringing the next morning when I went to investigate. The moral of this is to get an alarm on your shed, but make sure the door cant blow open

In the early days the road ways around the allotment were very poor they were just earth, there was no hardcore on them like today. In the winter time many people had trouble driving round because it was so muddy, I remember having to tow a car out that had become stuck in very large ruts, so from that point of view there has been a great improvement in the road ways and the parking. I never really remember much activity in the trading hut until Arthur and his wife Ada took it over, not sure what year that was. Compared with the hut run by Tony and Karen today, it was very limited in what was stocked. This has to my mind been one of the most noticeable changes and improvements along with Association and all credit to them for their hard work throughout the years.

In the 1980's you were not allowed to keep chickens on site and very few people had Poly tunnels. However one chap did have a couple of Goats in a shed over where the Wilderness allotment is today, if I remember correctly they escaped on more than one occasion.

From memory a large number of plots were occupied but mainly by older males, there was very few females or young people.It was seen very much as an older persons activity and did not have the universal popularity it has today.

About twenty years ago I gave up that plot and moved onto plot 4F with my very good friend the late Derek Farthing on plot 4R ,when he became to ill to carry on I took over the whole plot.What a massive difference the soil structure was just moving over the other side of the road way. Very few stones ,no clay, nice and light what a difference.

The big changes over the past twenty years is that I now have to net every time I grow green vegetables, if not the lot would be eaten within days by the Pigeons. The other major problem I have is with the continual damage done to the crops by Badgers which seem to have taken over this part of the allotment. It seems to be even worse in the dry weather where they dig down in areas that you have watered. They also seemed to have developed a liking for carrots, last year they cleared a complete row and started to eat the new potatoes. Over the past couple of years I have planted new soft fruit both strawberry and raspberry, which seemed to be doing ok. However I have had to put a fence around them because of the Badgers. Five years ago I planted an Asparagus bed using crowns, the soil is good and I dug plenty of rotted compost first. After a couple of years of not cutting the spears it has produces a really good crop and is now one of my gardening highlights, when it come in spring. The big problem is that it has a very short season. I always try and use crop rotation to get the best yield and reduce the chance of potato blight. I have tried growing the more resistant varieties of potato but find the best results on my plot are Charlotte (salad potato) as early variety and Desiree as main crop.



Over the past years the weather has got warmer and the rainfall far less especially in the spring. So watering the plot is a big problem, more so when you get older, the taps that we have now are very tiresome. In the early days we had water tanks which were filled using a cistern, like a standard cold water tank in your house. These were removed when there was a change in the regulations, apparently they were concerned about the tank back feeding the mains supply and contaminating it. All it it needed was a simple non return valve on the mains supply.

Vandalism is still a problem on the site from time to time.Early this year I had one of my sheds broken into, nothing was taken ,they just smashed it to bits with a garden roller that I had stored in there. The fence along the south boundary is in a poor state, with much damage done by the badgers so it makes for easy accessfor vandals .

Once again, a massive thank you to John for producing this article for the website. Keep looking out for the features page as we catch up with other Association members to see if they too will share their thoughts with us.